Gawker Editor’s Testimony Stuns Courtroom in Hulk Hogan Trial

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Nick Denton, left, founder of Gawker Media, and Albert J. Daulerio, a former editor in chief of Gawker, listening to testimony on Wednesday during a trial over a sex tape involving Hulk Hogan.CreditCreditSteve Nesius/Associated Press

By Nick Madigan

March 9, 2016

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A palpable sense of shock rippled through a courtroom here Wednesday morning when the former editor in chief of Gawker.com was shown in a videotaped deposition suggesting that almost anything goes when it comes to the newsworthiness of celebrities’ sex videos.

The former editor, Albert J. Daulerio, a defendant in an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit brought by the retired wrestler Hulk Hogan, was asked by the plaintiff’s lawyer where he drew the line when it came to posting videos of people having sex.

“Can you imagine a situation where a celebrity sex tape would not be newsworthy?” asked the lawyer, Douglas E. Mirell.

“If they were a child,” Mr. Daulerio replied.

“Under what age?” the lawyer pressed.

“Four.”

Gawker said later in a statement that Mr. Daulerio was being flippant.

Still, the exchange highlighted the way that Gawker’s culture of reporting on some of the most intimate aspects of the lives of celebrities and prominent newsmakers was being put on trial.

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Albert J. Daulerio, former editor of Gawker, set broad limits for newsworthiness.CreditPool photo by Steve Nesius

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Nick Denton, founder of Gawker, said he believed that the tape was worth posting.CreditPool photo by Steve Nesius

Mr. Daulerio’s testimony took place during depositions taken last year in advance of the trial, which began on Monday, in the suit by the retired wrestler, known in the proceedings by his legal name, Terry G. Bollea, against Gawker Media; its founder, Nick Denton; Mr. Daulerio; and others.

Mr. Bollea is seeking $100 million in damages, saying that amounts to the harm he suffered after Gawker posted in 2012 a secretly recorded video showing him having sex with a friend’s wife.

The case is prompting significant questions about how far First Amendment rights stretch in an era when the unregulated Internet is ripe for abuse by anyone with a computer.

In addition, testimony this week by Mr. Daulerio and other current and former members of Gawker’s staff has raised a curtain on the culture of the website and others like it that traffic in salacious fare in an effort to gain readers.

Asked whether sex sells, Mr. Daulerio replied, “I’m sure.”

In such a culture, he went on, it was “pretty standard operating procedure” to seize upon and publish photographs and videos of celebrities in compromising or intimate situations, regardless of whether the celebrity might object or be embarrassed. Mr. Daulerio conceded that no such consideration guided Gawker’s publication of lewd images of the former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre or of photographs of a topless Duchess of Cambridge.

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The former wrestler Hulk Hogan is suing Gawker Media over a sex tape it published.CreditPool photo by Steve Nesius

“She’s a public figure, and those pictures were published elsewhere,” Mr. Daulerio said, referring to the duchess, the former Kate Middleton. He acknowledged that there had been no discussion in the Gawker newsroom at the time whether the publication of the pictures constituted an invasion of her privacy.

Similar thinking, Mr. Daulerio said, dictated the site’s handling of the video of Hulk Hogan, which he noted had been provided anonymously to him in the mail and for which no money had changed hands.

“I was very enthusiastic about writing about it,” Mr. Daulerio said. He explained that he had “enjoyed watching the video” and was eager to attach his commentary to it on the site.

“I found it very amusing,” he said. “I thought it was newsworthy, and it was something that was worth publishing.”

In response to a question from Mr. Mirell, the defendant said that neither he nor anyone else at Gawker had made any attempt to contact Mr. Bollea to ask him whether he was in fact the man in the grainy video, and how he felt about Gawker’s intention of publishing it.

“You didn’t really care, did you?” Mr. Mirell suggested.

“No,” Mr. Daulerio said.

A moment later, after an objection from a lawyer for Gawker, Mr. Mirell persisted. “So it’s fair to say that whether he suffered emotional distress or not, that played no part in your decision whether or what to publish,” he said.

“Correct,” Mr. Daulerio replied.

Videotaped testimony by his boss, Mr. Denton, was also shown to the jury, later in the day, even though the two men were sitting behind their lawyers in the courtroom. The plaintiffs’ use of taped depositions at this early stage of the trial seemed intended to stave off cross-examinations by the defense, which might reduce the impact of their words on the videos. Both defendants, however, are on their own legal team’s list of witnesses, to be called to the stand when it is the defense’s turn to present evidence at the trial.

Under questioning in the deposition, recorded in October 2013, Mr. Denton said that contrary to Mr. Daulerio’s feelings, he had not been “very excited” by news that Gawker had received a video showing Hulk Hogan having sex with a woman on a four-poster bed. “We all have sex,” Mr. Denton said, noting that he preferred stories that had “some kind of meaning.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Denton did not impede the video’s publication, although he advised his editor “not to put up the whole tape.” A video editor cut it to 1 minute 41 seconds, from roughly 30 minutes.

Asked whether he or his staff had looked into the tape’s provenance, Mr. Denton demurred. “We can’t always determine the circumstances in which a film was made,” he said.

A letter from a lawyer for Mr. Bollea, asking Gawker to take down the video shortly after it had been posted, “wasn’t persuasive,” Mr. Denton said. “We continued to believe in its newsworthiness.”

The video remained on the site for about six months, until a court ordered its removal. Lawyers for Mr. Bollea said they had no intention of showing the tape to the jury during the trial.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Editor Jolts Courtroom in Hulk Hogan Trial. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe